Gratuities -- Pay in Advance or Not?

Can you explain discounted gift cards?? Thanks!!

If you have a Target Red Card (for example) you can get 5% off your purchase (pay $95 for a $100 card), which includes Disney Gift Cards. We use the cards to pay for everything: stateroom, tips, load the shipboard account for excursions/shopping/drinks. Across four cruises, we've saved over $2000 and it costs us nothing. You can also get similar discounts at BJs and (I believe) COSTCO. We use Target because it's very convenient. I purchase a set amount every payday and get the savings and no debt incurred!! Yay! :)
 
Can you explain discounted gift cards?? Thanks!!
Some retailers sell gift cards at less than face value. For instance, BJs and Sams Club sells Disney gift cards at a 2-4% discount (depending on the amount). So, if you buy $1000 of gift cards at a 4% discount, you'll pay $960 for them.

Costco has a whole display case of discounted gift cards, but they don't carry Disney (hopefully they will sometime soon). Paypal gifts will sometimes have gift card sales (haven't seen Disney there, but I did save $105 on a Carnival cruise).
 
If you have a Target Red Card (for example) you can get 5% off your purchase (pay $95 for a $100 card), which includes Disney Gift Cards. We use the cards to pay for everything: stateroom, tips, load the shipboard account for excursions/shopping/drinks. Across four cruises, we've saved over $2000 and it costs us nothing. You can also get similar discounts at BJs and (I believe) COSTCO. We use Target because it's very convenient. I purchase a set amount every payday and get the savings and no debt incurred!! Yay! :)

And you can go to disneygiftcard.com and combine them (up to $1000 on each card) into one (or a few depending on how much you're planning on for spending money, etc.) card. Makes life easier for EVERYONE - and you don't have to hang onto a pile in case there is a refund issued because it will go back to the gift card(s) that were the form of payment. If you have a stack of cards, it'll be a lot harder to figure out which card it went onto as opposed to one or two cards to determine. (The site I mentioned only lets you store like 5 cards I think...so I have a couple of cards I hang onto that are special and not the plain Mickey, and then I delete the Mickey cards once I've transferred the money.)
 
Not a fan of prepaying and my TA also doesn’t recommend it. As a cruiser who got canceled because of Irma last year, it’s one more thing you have to deal with getting reimbursed if your cruise doesn’t happen. Folks also had to get reimbursed for prepaying parking, but after Irma, you can no longer prepay parking now. Not fun and took 2-3 weeks to get reimbursed all funds.
 


Can you explain discounted gift cards?? Thanks!!

Sure. There are multiple ways to buy Disney Gift Cards discounted...some easier than others. For paying for tips and other disney onboard incidental charges, I usually buy gift cards from Sams Club (with membership). Sams sells Disney Gift Cards at 4% off. The Discover card and Freedom credit card offer 5% bonus off warehouse club purchases during multiple months of the year. I use one of these credit cards to get the 5% bonus, plus the normal 1% back from credit card purchases, plus the 4% discount from Sams to get to a total of ~10% discount.

This works well for paying for tips and other DCL incidentals since the discounted Disney GCs from Sam's that are 4% off are sold in 3x$50 cards (bundles of $150). Also the Discover and Freedom bonus is usually limited to $1500 during each of their bonus periods. In other words, buying a huge amount of gift cards this way for paying for a whole trip would take a while and you'd be dealing with lots of gift cards. Sams does sell a $500 Disney Gift Card at 3% discount, but that's not what I generally use for tips & incidentals credits.
 
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Folks also had to get reimbursed for prepaying parking, but after Irma, you can no longer prepay parking now. Not fun and took 2-3 weeks to get reimbursed all funds.

Interesting. I couldn't understand before why Port Canaveral would get rid of prepaid parking, but it sounds right that issues such as Irma probably would have made it not worth the logistics cost.
 
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We don't pay in advance. If something occurs in which we are unable to cruise, it is one less thing to worry about. One less thing to track down. It is same reason we never pre-paid for parking (there wasn't any incentive to do it, like a lower rate).

We too use discounted gift cards, and go to guest services before the cruise ends and adjust our tips based on our service level and then pay our account with the gift cards. It really isn't that difficult and if you visit guest services at an off time (not the last night at 7pm) it is really quite simple. Sure I've already moved the money from my bank account to the gift card, but again, one less thing to worry about should something happen or for some reason need an infusion of cash. I could sell the gift card for a % of its value if it came down to it.

For us it is about mitigating risk. Sure the risk is quite low that we would need to cancel or anything else, but it gives me some piece of mind.
 


I don't see the point. Why give DCL my money before they need it. It doesn't actually go to the staff any earlier than if I pay it later. You're not really prepaying gratuities; you're only paying DCL a sum of money equal to the minimum amount of the gratuities that they then hold onto until they charge them to your account near the end of the cruise. It has absolutely no impact on your service.

We have a reasonably good idea how much our credit card will be charged so we are just ready to pay it off when we get home. And even if I only earn one cent interest by hanging on to it for a few months, I'd prefer that over letting someone else earn it. Even if I don't earn anything, what if I cancelled - that's a few more dollars I'd have to wait to get back. I'm an accountant - we never give anyone money before we absolutely have to!
 
You can also get similar discounts at BJs and (I believe) COSTCO.

As others have said, Sams club offers them at a slight discount. I haven't seen them at my costco, but I've noticed that as the holidays are creeping in they're getting GC kiosks set up so it may be seasonal for us here in the midwest. They're year round at Sams. I'm also getting our Southwest tickets via discounted GCds from Sams.

Our plan is to pre-pay as well, but here's a stupid question when you do pre-pay how does it appear as a credit on your account? meaning is it distinguishable from on board credit? I don't want DH spending tip money on the really really good scotch.
 
Our plan is to pre-pay as well, but here's a stupid question when you do pre-pay how does it appear as a credit on your account? meaning is it distinguishable from on board credit? I don't want DH spending tip money on the really really good scotch.

I don't think it shows up as a different line item but DCL does know if you use up your onboard booking credit since that part isn't refundable. Onboard credits are used up in the order that they were loaded onto your account.

OBB credits get used first, then credits that you added from cards are used up one by one with the last gift card loaded being the one used last. First in, first out. If you had any extra credits at the end of cruise, the refund would go to the last card(s) loaded.
 
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I don't see the point. Why give DCL my money before they need it. It doesn't actually go to the staff any earlier than if I pay it later. You're not really prepaying gratuities; you're only paying DCL a sum of money equal to the minimum amount of the gratuities that they then hold onto until they charge them to your account near the end of the cruise. It has absolutely no impact on your service.

We have a reasonably good idea how much our credit card will be charged so we are just ready to pay it off when we get home. And even if I only earn one cent interest by hanging on to it for a few months, I'd prefer that over letting someone else earn it. Even if I don't earn anything, what if I cancelled - that's a few more dollars I'd have to wait to get back. I'm an accountant - we never give anyone money before we absolutely have to!
The only reason I might do it is because my understanding with the Disney Visa promotion is if you prepay it that amount will qualify for 6 months no interest but if you wait until you are onboard it does not. We are anticipating having enough cash saved up for our trip (we are going in 2020 and already have a few thousand saved) but would love to leave that in the bank for a few extra months and collect a little bit more interest on it by using the promotion.
 
I don't want DH spending tip money on the really really good scotch.

Better than spending it on mediocre scotch :D.

The only reason I might do it is because my understanding with the Disney Visa promotion is if you prepay it that amount will qualify for 6 months no interest but if you wait until you are onboard it does not.

Unfortunately, we don't have access to the Disney Visa card in Canada; having that option is a nice bonus.
 
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I just pre-pay the gratuities so it's one less thing deal with, buy Disney gift cards (GC) through Sam's (the 3-pack of $50 is $142.98 or 4.80% discount), use the disneygiftcard.com to consolidate the GCs (Hi @Dug720 !! ), and pay off the bill as it accumulates to $1000 (keep an eye on the Navigation app). Actually came back from the Alaska cruise with money still on my GC this time.
 
The only reason I might do it is because my understanding with the Disney Visa promotion is if you prepay it that amount will qualify for 6 months no interest but if you wait until you are onboard it does not. We are anticipating having enough cash saved up for our trip (we are going in 2020 and already have a few thousand saved) but would love to leave that in the bank for a few extra months and collect a little bit more interest on it by using the promotion.
Correct,, if you go back to my post. That is why we try to prepay gratuities and excursions. We are retired and try to spread out our big cruise expenses over 6 months. If you wait and put
it on your cc at the end of the cruise, it does not qualify for the 6 month no interest promotion on the Disney Visa. We also take our Visa rewards card and spend that on the cruise.
 
You can also find discount gift cards on sites like giftcardgranny.com or giftcardwiki.com. I bought a bunch from those sites for places like Walmart, and then bought the discounted cards at Sam's Club. It's easier to find those cards than it is to find Disney ones for resale. It was a lot of work and probably not for everyone, but it was kind of fun to see how much I could save. On the disney cards I ultimately bought I saved about 6-7%, plus 1% back on my credit card. But I didn't pay for the whole cruise that way so overall it came out to about 3% savings (before CC cash back). Not exactly a huge payoff. Plus the people at Sam's club thought I was trying to scam them by paying with a million gift cards in odd amounts, lol.
 
I am not paying gratuities in advance because until I experience the service, I won't know how much I will be tipping.
 
Guess I’m different. We don’t typically pre-pay. I guess I’ve just always felt that the Service was Better... they have no idea How much Xtra I’ll leave... and won’t be lax cause tip already in their hands.
That being said.. hubby is a very good tipper, so I’m comfortable with it. And yes... it Can be a Shock... with that final
Tally.. but it’s Vacation after all!
( no disney Cruises .. not my choice lol)

The servers have no idea if you have pre-paid or not. If you have any "lax" behavior talk to their supervisor don't withhold tips.
 

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